Science & Technology
The genetic alphabet encodes the biological information of all types of life on Earth. It is made up of four letters that form two base pairs - the DNA double helix.
However, a team of scientists from the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California have created a lab organism that has been modified to add two more letters, giving it a genetic code of six letters.
The team, whose work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal, have shown that their single-celled organism can hold on indefinitely to the synthetic base pair as it divides.
"We've made this semisynthetic organism more life-like," senior author of the study Professor Floyd Romesberg said in a statement.
At the moment, the new technology cannot be put to very much use. Romesberg likened the new "flawed" organism to an infant. It had some learning to do before it was ready for real life. But it is hoped that it could be used to create new kinds of single-celled organisms that could lead to the discovery of new drugs.
Now a similar space rock is about to zoom by our helpless planet.
The new near-Earth object (NEO), dubbed asteroid 2017 BX, was only discovered a few days ago, on Friday, January 20. It's slated to swing by Tuesday night at 11:54 p.m. ET at a distance of about 162,000 miles (261,000 kilometers) — roughly two-thirds the way to the moon.
We first heard about it via an email from Slooh, a company that airs live views of space, and they're hosting a broadcast about 2017 BX — which they've nicknamed "Rerun" — starting at 5:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
We are surrounded by pulsating waves of invisible genetic information, whose waves create microscopic gravitational forces that pull in atoms and molecules from their surrounding environment to construct DNA.
One scientist who caught these microgravitational forces in their action is Dr. Sergey Leikin. In 2008, Leikin put different types of DNA in regular salt water and marked each type with a different fluorescent color and the DNA molecules were then scattered throughout the water. In the experiment's major surprise, matching DNA molecules were found pairing together. After a short time, entire clusters of the same colored DNA molecules had formed. Leikin believes some sort of electromagnetic charge allowed the same colored molecules to cluster. However, other experiments show that this is not the case. That it is most likely to be gravity. Let us explain.
In 2011, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Luc Montagnier demonstrated that DNA can be spontaneously formed out of merely hydrogen and oxygen. He started out with a hermetically sealed tube of pure sterilized water and then placed another sealed tube next to it, which had small amounts of DNA floating in water. Montagnier then electrified both tubes with a weak, 7 hertz electromagnetic field and waited. 18 hours later, little pieces of DNA had grown in the original tube, which consisted of only pure sterilized water.
The work could ultimately lead to new non-addictive, nicotine-based treatments for some of the 51 million people worldwide who suffer from the disease, the authors of the study envision.
Jerry Stitzel, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) and one of four CU Boulder researchers involved in the study, said:
"Our study provides compelling biological evidence that a specific genetic variant contributes to risk for schizophrenia, defines the mechanism responsible for the effect and validates that nicotine improves that deficit."Surprising Nicotine Effect
The study found that when mice with schizophrenic characteristics were given nicotine daily, their sluggish brain activity increased within two days. Within one week it had normalized.
Comment: Why spend all that time and money creating a new drug that works like nicotine? Just use nicotine!
- Research shows that smoking contributes to better cognitive function, lowers levels of social withdrawal, improves emotional and motivational responses
- Smoking 'Can Improve Schizophrenic Minds'
Researchers at Imperial College London believe an injection of the hormone, called 'kisspeptin,' could stimulate sexual arousal and romance in the brain after early-stage trials yielded positive results.
They speculate the naturally occurring hormone, which is essential to the body's reproductive system, could help people overcome psychosexual problems in the future.
Scientists gave kisspeptin injections to 29 healthy young men and found the hormone increased the brain's response to pictures of couples in romantic or sexual situations.

GOES-16 captured this view of the moon, as it looks across the Pacific Northwest on Jan. 15. As with earlier GOES spacecraft, GOES-16 will use the moon for calibration.
Meteorologists are drooling. This release coincides with the first day of the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting. There are thousands of weather geeks in Seattle this week, and — at least on Monday — they're all looking at this next-gen satellite imagery.
As we've written before, GOES-R satellite has six instruments, two of which are weather-related. The Advanced Baseline Imager, developed by Harris Corp., is the "camera" that looks down on Earth. The pictures it sends back will be clearer and more detailed than what's created by the current satellites.
From the moment life gained a foothold on Earth its story has been written in a DNA code of four letters. With G, T, C and A - the molecules that pair up in the DNA helix - the lines between humans and all life on Earth are spelled out.
Now, the first living organisms to thrive with an expanded genetic code have been made by researchers in work that paves the way for the creation and exploitation of entirely new life forms.
A research team at the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics led by Professor Zhu Yingjie developed the world's first kind of paper that can resist both water and fire, even if its surface is scratched or physically damaged.
The scientists added a form of calcium called hydroxyapatite, found in animal tooth enamel and bone, to change the structure of paper and give it special properties, the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post reported.
The paper looks similar to the conventional product but has a slightly smoother surface. The researchers say it can repel coffee, juice or tea, and withstand heat of up to 200 degrees Celsius. They also claim the paper can be wiped clean with water without smudging what is written on it.

An artist's impression showing the increasing effect of ram-pressure stripping in removing gas from galaxies, sending them to an early death.
New research published today by a global team of researchers, based at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), seeks to answer that question. The study reveals that a phenomenon called ram-pressure stripping is more prevalent than previously thought, driving gas from galaxies and sending them to an early death by depriving them of the material to make new stars.
The study of 11,000 galaxies shows their gas—the lifeblood for star formation—is being violently stripped away on a widespread scale throughout the local Universe.
Toby Brown, leader of the study and PhD candidate at ICRAR and Swinburne University of Technology, said the image we paint as astronomers is that galaxies are embedded in clouds of dark matter that we call dark matter halos.
Dark matter is the mysterious material that despite being invisible accounts for roughly 27 per cent of our Universe, while ordinary matter makes up just 5 per cent. The remaining 68 per cent is dark energy.
Many viruses face a choice after they have infected their hosts: to replicate quickly, killing the cell in the process, or to become dormant and lie in wait. HIV, herpes, and a number of other human viruses behave this way and, in fact, even the viruses that attack bacteria -- phages -- face similar decisions when invading a cell. What causes a virus to choose dormancy over immediate gratification? Prof. Rotem Sorek and his group in the Weizmann Institute's Department of Molecular Genetics have now discovered that, during infection, viruses secrete small molecules into their environment that other viruses can pick up and "read." In this way, they can actually coordinate their attack, turning simple messages into a fairly sophisticated strategy.













Comment: Here is the partial list of fireballs observed during the last year alone.
See also:
Asteroid or Comet? NASA detects two space rocks heading towards Earth
Another close shave: Asteroid discovered 4 days ago whizzes past Earth